Adhesive application apparatus

An adhesive application apparatus for applying a continuous strip of extrudable adhesive material to the periphery of either a window opening in a motor vehicle or a pane of glass sized to cover said window opening, said apparatus comprising a pressurized supply means connected to a source of said adhesive, the pressurized supply means including a reservoir which contains at least sufficient of said extrudable adhesive material for applying around the entire periphery of said window opening or pane of glass, which reservoir is emptied at a predefined rate during application of said adhesive material to said periphery, and is automatically refilled with adhesive material from a bulk reservoir when said application is not occurring;

• a dispensing means including an angularly movable nozzle having a tip alignable with said periphery and having a truncated conical-shaped opening across the tip thereof through which the adhesive material is extruded in a strip of predetermined cross-sectional shape upon movement of the nozzle along said periphery with the truncated conical-shaped opening moving parallel to said periphery, said nozzle being movably mounted within a stationary rigid framework surrounding said periphery, said dispensing means being in fluid connection with said pressurized supply means and being movable relative to said rigid framework by drive means, said drive means including three separate drive motors for controlling the movement of said dispensing means relative to said rigid framework in three dimensions all mutually at right angles to one another, each drive motor controlling said movement in one linear dimension, and a fourth drive motor controlling angular movement of said nozzle with respect to said periphery as the nozzle moved around each corner of said window opening or said pane of glass;
• and a computer numerical control system connected to both the pressurized supply means and said drive means, said computer numerical control system being operable by a predetermined program to exert full automatic control over the pressurized supply means and the drive means so that, when the apparatus is in operation, a predefined quantity of said strip of adhesive material is extruded at said predefined rate from said nozzle on to said periphery, the nozzle of the dispensing means is caused to accurately follow said periphery, and all four of said drive motors are under full positional and speed control exerted by said computer numerical control system with said fourth drive motor particularly controlling angular movement of the nozzle to assure the extrusion of a strip or adhesive material of predetermined cross-sectional area along the periphery and around the corners by maintaining a parallel orientation of said truncated conical-shaped opening with said periphery.